By STEVE KRAH
Baseball at La Lumiere School in La Porte, Ind., got new guidance with gusto by hiring Blake Logsdon as Lakers head coach.
In July 2023, Logsdon became head coach for boys tennis and baseball at the boarding and day school with an enrollment close to 200 with a stated mission to “form character, cultivate scholarship, explore faith in order to grow into more complete versions of ourselves.”
The coed Catholic school located on 190 acres was established in 1963.
Logsdon played tennis and baseball at Portage (Ind.) High School, where he graduated in 2014. His head baseball coach was Tim Pirowski.
After that came baseball at Purdue University North Central and cross country and baseball at Indiana University South Bend.
Shane Prance, who is now head coach at Portage High, was Logsdon’s head coach at Purdue North Central.
When PNC and Purdue Calumet merged to form Purdue Northwest, Logsdon transferred to IUSB, where he was on the cross country and baseball teams — the latter as a relief pitcher.
His head coaches with Titans baseball were Mike Huling for his junior season (2017) and Doug Buysse (2018) for his senior campaign.
Blake and father Derek Logsdon (who is now a La Lu assistant) coached the Porter County Storm Babe Ruth team. He grew up in South Haven, Ind., and played the Storm in his younger days.
Logsdon holds a degree in Elementary Education with a concentration in mathematics from IUSB.
His day job is as a utility laborer for Indiana Pickling & Processing, a steel company in Portage. His father leads the quality department and special projects at IPP.
The younger Logsdon was head junior varsity baseball coach at New Prairie High School in New Carlisle, Ind., in 2022 and 2023 then started looking to become a high school head coach. He gives credit for much of what he knows about baseball to his father and New Prairie head coach Mark Schellinger.
Blake learned about the La Lumiere baseball opening from former PNC and current Lakers athletic trainer Doug Cassell.
“He knew I had a passion,” says Logsdon, who applied for vacancies at other area institutions. “I’ve always had a drive for the small schools. You get to work with more kids.
“It builds a better thought in my mind. We’re basically building a team from Ground Zero.”
With 14 regular players on the 2024 roster — about half with prior exposure to the game — the primary thought for La Lumiere this spring has been on basic development.
“The small things such as throwing, catching, running and swinging the bat, that’s our main focus right now,” says Logsdon. “I have a lot of first-year guys.”
The senior-less roster is split between boarders and day schoolers and features students from Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Illinois and Minnesota as well as locals.
Logsdon is assisting players who want to play college baseball with their recruiting videos.
English department chair Matt Buchanan and realtor Mitch Willis are also Lakers assistant coaches.
Gary Demski, a South Bend Washington High School alum who did his undergraduate work at Indiana University in Bloomington and earned his Master of Sports Administration at Valparaiso (Ind.) University, is in his first year as Director of Athletics & Athletic Communications at La Lumiere.
The former IUSB Executive Director of Athletics & Activities and Student Activities Center Director is tasked with helping to build up LL programs and expanding their schedules.
La Lumiere is an athletic independent and does not belong to the Indiana High School Athletic Association.
Heading into this week (May 13-18) — the last one on the 2023-24 IHSAA calendar — the Lakers were 6-3. The schedule is to conclude May 15 at New Prairie JV.
One of the highlights of season was a no-hitter with 21 strikeouts for Brady Monaghan (Northfield, Minn.) against Michigan City junior varsity.
“I’m hoping we can get enough guys in the future so we can form a second team at the JV or C-team level,” says Logsdon.
The Lakers split their practice time on-campus and at Ron Reed Field at La Porte’s Fox Memorial Park. Home games are played at the Truesdell Avenue diamond.
“It’s in a nice area,” says Logsdon of the setting next to Clear Lake. “It’s not a bad view.”
Work is being done to re-build the diamond at La Lumiere.
“We want to make that our official home field in the future,” says Logsdon.
Blake is part of an athletic family.
Derek Logsdon, a member of a football team inducted into the Hobart (Ind.) High School Athletics Hall of Fame, played that sport for the Brickies and at Franklin (Ind.) College.
Sandi Logsdon, Derek’s wife, is a former Portage gymnast.
The couple has five children that were all Portage athletes — D.J., Cody, Dillon, Blake and Elyssia.
D.J. Logsdon (Class of 2010) went on to play football at Saint Joseph’s College in Rensselaer, Ind.
Cody Logsdon (Class of 2011) was a basketball player at SJC.
Dillon Logsdon (Class of 2013) was a State Finals-qualifying wrestler at Portage. At 6-foot-1 and 126 pounds, he was referred to in one Jim Peters Northwest Indiana Times article as “lanky Logsdon.”
Elyssia Logsdon (Class of 2018) was on the Indians girls basketball team and is on in the National Guard.
Blake and Juana Ruiz were married in July 2023 and are expecting their first child at any time. Her husband is kept hopping with his full-time job, working with the baseball team and its field and getting ready for the new arrival.
“We are on the home stretch right now,” says Logsdon. “It’s any moment of any day.”
The couple met at PNC, began dating in 2019 and got engaged on Blake’s IUSB graduation day. She is a 2014 graduate of La Porte High School, where she ran cross country.
There are Facebook pages for both the La Lumiere baseball and boys tennis programs.
www.IndianaRBI.com 